We're Not Wizards - Tabletop Board Game Reviews

The Binding of Isaac is a hugely successful videogame, and thanks to two extremely lucrative crowdfunding efforts that netted around $8 million, you could argue that its a highly successful card game as well. The videogame fits almost too perfectly into begin turned into cardboard, with its roguelike genetics being suited to the randomness of dungeon crawler, variable bonuses and and player powers sitting well within the tabletop realm. There's around eighty thousand people who have some kind of variation of the tabletop game. So surely its extremely good because well funded games are always amazing, aren't they.  I'm approaching this as someone who is away from the hype canoe sailing down the river rapids of marketing and excitement and so this is probably going to be dull in comparison. I'm also someone who is a fan of the game, and has spent many an hour running around randomly generated dungeons of blood and filth.  For those unfamiliar with the videogame, you play

Power Hungry Pets by the Exploding Kittens team is essentially Love Letter , but in an Exploding Kittens flavour. Love Letter is such a staple in my collection that when I'm thinking about culling the collection it doesn't even make the pile for consideration to be considered for the pile that will be considered potentially to even look at culling. I think it is one of those games that sits well in being both easy to teach but has enough meat on the bones to make it worthwhile playing. My own copy of Love Letter has been played so many times and through so many hands that when you see another company create a version of it, then I'm going to be concerned and potentially sceptical. It's like Pizza Hut announcing they are going to be making their version of a Big Mac. You know they have to get those Big Maccy flavours in, but at the same time, they also need to remind you that you're chomping down on the Pizza hut version.  Exploding Kittens is such a huge brand

Nawalli creates a curiosity as soon as you have the box sitting in front of you. I'm so used to seeing dramatically overstated attraction artwork, that the colour scheme and simplicity of the Nawalli box was a refreshing change. When you remove the lid and start going through the cards I'll be surprised if you don't spend time appreciating the style of art on offer here. Nawalli's theme is based around traditional Aztec artwork which means you have extremely strong images and line work, strong colours that often clash with each other in a delightful way. The artwork and theme alone was enough to want me to see how this would play on the table.  Nawalli is a lane battler, along the same lines as Sol Forge, where you'll be playing Nawals into one of four lanes with the aim of trying to capture Tonalli gems. Gather thirteen and you'll win the game which differs it from the normal 'reduce the enemy down to zero'. It gives the potential for more of a tug of w